


I do not care (and oh how I'm lying to myself)

by hogwuna



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, Billy Hargrove Needs a Hug, Child Abuse, Guide!Billy Hargrove, M/M, Neil Hargrove Being an Asshole, Period-Typical Homophobia, Sentinel!Steve Harrington, Sentinel/Guide, Sentinel/Guide Bonding, Soft Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington Needs a Hug, but not a lot cuz im writing and i dont like it, slowish burn, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:00:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23655745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hogwuna/pseuds/hogwuna
Summary: Billy's dad doesn't like that his son is a Guide. When Neil finds him interacting with a Sentinel, he decides to up and move their family to Hicktown Indiana where there are no Sentinels nor Guides. Or, well, that's what Neil and everyone else believes, including one oblivious Sentinel,
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 9
Kudos: 69





	I do not care (and oh how I'm lying to myself)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! I love the Sentinel/Guide universe so I've decided to try my hand at it. This is my first time writing for Harringrove and I hope you'll like it. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to make it explicit or not, but just in case I've left it at that. My goal is to update every week so hoping I can keep up with that while working!

Steve struggles. He knows he’s like, dumb, or whatever, knows that it sometimes takes him too long to take in information, knows that he gets distracted too easily. He sees a fly come in through his window at the age of nine and the world stops. He cannot refocus until the stupid thing flies back out of the window, and even then it’s like he is trying to break the surface of stormy waters. This keeps happening over and over and over again. He complains to his parents one day, exhausted and scared to look at anything from fear of losing more hours. He is scared and he struggles, and his dad calls him a good for nothing lazy ass who will never accomplish anything, and well, ouch. His mom is a little gentler, if only by completely avoiding that conversation, only skirting the edges of painful topics.  
School is made bearable by friends, by Tommy and Carol. Even still, sometimes he can’t stop staring at the dimple on Carol’s chin, or at Tommy’s freckles. Sometimes it’s Carol popping a bubble gum or a song Tommy plays on the radio that catches his attention and holds it in a vice. 

He hopes that things will get better as he gets older, that it’s just his kid brain fucking up or something, but that hope dissipates in high school. It gets so much worse and there are days when he doesn’t know how he even keeps moving, keeps functioning. The giggle of girls as they whisper behind their hands and stare at him as he passes in the hallway, the scrape of chalk on the board, the too salty french fries in the cafeteria, the push and shove on the basketball court. Everything is too much all at once and he doesn’t know how to explain to anyone that he needs them to back away, to let him breathe. And even that, breathing in the stale air in the classrooms, bothers him sometimes. 

He doesn’t know how to explain that his brain is broken and that he can barely function. Doesn’t even try after his parents. They were the ones who were supposed to understand, support and help him but the looks of pity and disappointment sink into his bones. So he distracts himself with parties and friends and basketball and then there is Nancy Wheeler. And it’s… It’s good. He focuses, yeah, but it’s not the hyper focus he gets stuck in all the time now. She is like a breath of fresh hair with her big blue eyes, and he expects to lose himself in them and yet. He doesn’t. She is the only one who doesn’t make him lose his focus, so of course he focuses all his attention on her. Tries to grab her attention right back. And it’s not even that he just wants to get into her pants. I mean, yeah, okay, he does, but he also just wants to be around her, hopes that if he is with her long enough, her genius and her wit and intellect will rub off on him and fix the waste of meat that is his brain. 

It works for a while before it all goes to shit. Afterwards, he cannot force himself to regret it. The moments where he felt he wasn’t drowning are too precious to want them gone. But it still hurts. It suffocates him, the thought that he is gonna slip, and soon. That he is gonna drown once again and that this time he doesn’t have anyone to count on. Tommy and Carol are gone, Nancy isn’t exactly gone, but he cannot let himself get close to her. He wouldn’t survive her rejection again.

It gets worse real quick. During the day it’s not as bad. But as soon as he is left alone at night, well… it’s like he is playing Russian roulette, where the cylinder is filled with bullets and the one empty spot is a full night of sleep with no nightmares. At some point he stops counting the number of bullets that have hit him. 

One night, Steve sits and stares at the blue blue blue blue of his jumper, the blue of every single thread that makes it up, the blue blue blue enveloping him until he is nothing more than blue.  
He comes to two days later, exhausted, hungry, thirsty and lonelier than ever. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
His mere existence grates on Neil’s nerves. Billy is like a thorn in the old man’s side, a weakling son, born all wrong, all kinds of messed up, all kinds of gentle and soft that a man should never be. Billy’s biology isn’t something he can control and yet he is punished for it.

And he had thought, for a second, with Maxine and Susan in the picture, that he was safe. That the brunt of attention was off of him, that he’d be able to breathe. He let himself relax. Let down his guard.  
He had slipped up. It didn’t matter to his dad that Billy and Kyle weren’t dating, that the other boy wasn’t Billy’s Sentinel, for fuck’s sake, he was just a friend and Billy was just helping out, not wanting to let him go into a Zone. Maxine had caught them in Billy’s room and she had no clue what he was doing but she saw Billy with his hands on Kyle’s head, his eyebrows turned down, his teeth clenched in concentration and she ran to tell Neil.

Almost all of Billy’s efforts were ruined when Neil started beating the crap out of Kyle. The other boy didn’t even have the presence of mind to defend himself, so close to a Zone. And Neil, the monster that he was, had shoved him, kicked him right into the depths that he couldn’t come out of. It took a professional Guide to drag Kyle out of his pain focused Zone but by that time the Hargrove family had packed up. Gone. Settled in the backwater shitshow that is Hawkins, Indiana. 

Billy is all rage. A Guide should never be so full of hate, and yet here he is. He knows, from his teachers and from his mom, that he is basically an emotions sponge. An empath. He also knows that he has soaked up everything that is terrible about Neil, all the shitty emotions surrounding him. Anger. Fear. Though he will deny fear till his dying breath.

He let’s rage consume him. It’s a safe emotion, damn well safer than caring. He can’t slip up ever again. Neil made sure of that too. Guide and Sentinal population in Hawkins? A whopping zero. Absolute perfection. Well, if you don't count Billy now, of course. But Neil never counts Billy as anything more than a human failure and a punching bag, so. Still a zero. 

Max avoids looking at him whenever she can get away with it. They used to have a friendship, of sorts. A truce. He taught her how to surf, her own shitty dad having neglected that. He bought her a skateboard when she proclaimed that she could shred harder than any of the boys at the skate park. He thinks that, maybe, he could have gotten used to her as a sister. Could have. If she hadn’t ruined his life. 

She sits in the passenger seat on the drive over to their first day at hick school. Her stare is firmly fixed outside, the frown permanently stuck on her face these days. Billy isn’t any better if he’s being honest. And it’s a smart move on her part. He feels that if she were to speak to him, if she were to apologize or some other bullshit like that, he’d probably bite her head off. He is rage and nothing more these days. 

The Camaro pulls into the parking lot in a roar. Maxine gets out, slams the door, and Billy’s rage flares instantly.

„Hey shitbird! Don’t slam the fucking door!“ He yells at her, and she turns around with a glare, instantly ready up for a fight. She is becoming more and more like him with each passing day. He wants to say, don’t. Wants to say, don’t let the anger consume you. Don’t lose control. But then he’d be a hypocrite while breaking his promise to not care anymore.

„You are literally the worst Billy!“ She spits out. He doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t. He isn’t weak. Doesn’t matter if he feels the anger harsher than a normal person would. 

’’You can think whatever you want, but you better be here as soon as school ends or your ass is grass!“ He growls out, getting out of the car as well. She flips him the bird and stomps away.

Billy deflates a bit with her every step, with every push he gives her to stay away. He grabs his Marlboro out of his pocket and shakes one out. His hands shake as he lights the cigarette up but he ignores it. Inhales smoke and looks around, trying to ascertain how much of a shithole this place really is. Most of the students are staring at him and he puffs up his chest a bit, leans against the Camaro, looking like he has no bother in the world. He scans the place, makes eye contact with everyone, relishes in the fact that it is always them that break it, never enough courage to hold it. He is already half way to becoming king of this place. Now if only he could find the current one and take him down a peg or two. 

Billy’s gaze stops on a pair that isn’t paying attention to him, deep in conversation. At first glance he would have pegged them as a couple, but they both seem too awkward, like they don’t know what to do with each other. The girl is short, skinny, looks frail, with brown hair pulled up in a ponytail. She has her arms crossed, all defensive, a frown set deep into her face. The boy is tall, lanky, brown hair messy in a styled sort of way. Pretty. The prettiest thing his seen in this place so far. But he keeps avoiding the girl’s eyes, shrinking in on himself, looking like he’d rather be anywhere but here. 

As if feeling Billy's stare piercing a hole in him, the boy turns and stares right at him, brown eyes wide like a deer in headlights, which, considering the girl in front of him, might not be far from the truth. Billy is once again stunned by how pretty the boy is, but that’s not what makes Billy’s breath stutter in his chest. 

Even from across the lot, Billy can feel the boy’s senses going haywire, is shocked that the boy isn’t even trying to reel them in. "Sentinel" is Billy's first thought. „I have to help him“, is his second. But he doesn't. The next moment, he slams his shields up, throws a smirk at the boy in acknowledgement and walks away.


End file.
